Trace Lines
by karebear
Summary: "He's still finding all her trace lines, claiming her as his own. He reads the story written on her skin." A coda to Fight To Hold (the other thing they did that night). In which The Iron Bull romances a non-Inquisitor (female elf) OC.


Eris lies curled up on her side, naked, shivering slightly. The mattress under her is warm, and her body has carved a little nest within it, a dip just deep enough for her to rest in safely. The Iron Bull is sitting at the foot of the bed. It sinks under his considerable weight. "Are you cold?" he asks, his voice a low rumble.

"No."

"Liar."

He places his large hand on her back, and his flesh is hot against hers. She shifts, trying to get closer to him. Her legs kick out, almost connecting with the Bull's hip.

There is a blanket, tangled and twisted between the two of them. Bull picks it up with his free hand, but stops short of draping it over Eris. Instead, he just watches her, feels the rise and fall of her breathing. It grows a bit more slow and steady, as he gently massages between her shoulder blades.

She tenses up as he picks up his hand and instead runs a blunted claw down one of the white trace-lines running down her back. She'd almost forgotten they were there. Except that she will never forget they are there.

"These are from Tevinter?" he asks, and she nods. She'd felt the whip more than once, of course, and most of those punishments are just blurs now, lost in what, to her, was a normal childhood. But those lines, ridged and raised from the rest of her flesh, she remembers those.

"I was fifteen. Stole a bottle of Master's wine to impress a boy."

Bull actually smiles at that. "Doesn't sound like you."

Eris shrugs. "It's not like me anymore."

She closes her eyes and tries to chase the worst of the memories. Xarian had been sold after that.

She tenses up as Bull's hand drops lower, to the brand at the small of her back. It looks like a twisted star, a circle the size of a tightly closed fist. She was born into slavery, but the mark wasn't imprinted until she was two or three years old. She remembers being very young and screaming at the top of her lungs while something burned her with the heat of a sun. It's her first true memory.

Bull rests his hand on the mattress, next to the shiny burn scars, puckered at the edges, that cover most of her left side. Eris rolls over onto her stomach so he can see them.

"Halamshiral," she says softly.

Bull runs his fingers through Eris' hair. He was in Orlais while Halamshiral burned, but he couldn't have saved her from the pain of it. The physical _or_ emotional pain. He knows that Eris has a deep-set fear of fire, now. She still fights fire demons and fire dragons right alongside him when the situation requires it. And she never flinches until the fight is over. She's _strong_. Just like one of the Qun.

His chest tightens, watching her. He feels something with her that he is still not used to.

She's holding her breath, not even moving. She does it when she's scared, and can't admit it. Bull breathes out. How can she still be afraid of him? After all this time.

But she's not used to _this_ , in all the years she's known him, he's never… _studied_ her, this way.

And she never talks about her past, not even with him.

"Eris, come here," Bull says, and he helps her sit up and gathers her into his arm. "Kadan," he breathes. "You're beautiful."

He's still finding all her trace lines, claiming her as his own. He reads the story written on her skin.

She holds out her arm, so he can see the scratches carved there through years of working in vineyards and fields. There's a healed-over gash across the palm of her right hand. "Broken bottle," she tells him. "Same wine bottle from before, actually."

Bull bends down to kiss her, slow and deep, until Eris is gasping for air. He holds her against his chest. Both of them are wearing dragon tooth necklaces, they click against each other as they touch.

Bull's eyes are half closed. He runs his thumb down her arm. "What about this?" he asks, finding the line at her wrist, about the width of a finger.

"Blood," Eris says, calm and steady. "To make the magic stronger."

Bull growls softly, and the echoes of it rumble through Eris' back, and the arm she has pressed against his chest.

He rests his hand on the soft bulge of her stomach. There are marks there too, the imprints of childbirth. Eris looks up at Bull as pulls his hand away. Now he cups her breast, and she squirms against his touch, and he kisses her again. She places her hands on either side of his horned head and pulls him down closer to her.

When they break for air, she's panting and flushed. She reaches out, to rest her hand on his stomach, fingers spread. There is a patch of scar tissue there, rough and ragged, it takes almost her whole hand to cover it. "What's this from?"

"Explosion," he rumbles. "Gaatlok. On Seheron." She curls her hand into a loose fist, trailing her thumb upward, following a curving line. She looks the question at him. "Swordfight with an ill-advised Orlesian." She frowns, moving her other hand to his back. "That one's from an axe," he tells her, before she's even found it. "There was this crazy dwarf." He laughs then, loudly enough to echo in the small room. Eris smiles as Bull shakes his huge head and remembers the fight.

She reaches up, resting her hand just next to his lost eye. She knows that story.

Bull sighs contentedly, and holds Eris tighter. "We should get some sleep?" he says, but he makes it a question.

Eris knows he's right, though. They _should_ sleep. "We're going out with the Inquisitor tomorrow," she says quietly.

Bull grins. "Yeah. Think we'll get any new scars?"


End file.
